Mohamed S. Helal, B.A., M.A., L.L.B., LL.M., S.J.D.
Education and Experience
- BA, American University in Cairo
- MA, American University in Cairo
- LLB, Ain Shams University Faculty of Law
- LLM, Harvard Law School
- SJD, Harvard Law School
Biography
Mohamed Helal is an Associate Professor of Law at Moritz and an affiliated faculty member of the Mershon Center for International Security Studies at The Ohio State University. Professor Helal is also a Member of the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA), and is currently serving a five-year term as a member of the African Union Commission of International Law, where he is the African Union Special Rapporteur on International Law and Cyberspace.
Professor Helal teaches courses on Public International Law, the Law of Contracts, the law governing the resort to armed force by states (jus ad bellum), the law of armed conflict (jus in bello) and the theory and history of international law.
Professor Helal’s scholarship focuses on several areas, including the rules regulating the use of armed force by states (jus ad bellum), international organizations and U.N. law, the law of the sea, and the legal aspects of international security affairs. His work has appeared in many leading journals including the European Journal of International Law, Global Constitutionalism, the American Journal of International Law – Unbound, the Harvard National Security Journal and the N.Y.U. Journal of International Law & Politics. Professor Helal has also contributed chapters to numerous edited volumes.
Prior to joining Moritz, Professor Helal served as a Lecturer-on-Law at Harvard Law School and as a visiting professor at the Section Française of the Ain Shams University Faculty of Law in Egypt. In 2020-2021, Professor Helal was also a Visiting Associate Professor of Law and John Harvey Gregory Lecturer on World Organization at Harvard Law School.
Professor Helal also previously served as a diplomat and as an international civil servant, including service as Legal Counsel to the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Egypt, advising on issues relating to African Affairs and relations with Nile Basin States.
On Coercion in International Law, 52 N.Y.U. J. Int'l L. & Pol. 1 (2019)
Links: SSRN
Anarchy, Ordering Principles, and the Constitutive Regime of the International System, in Global Constitutionalism 2019).
Links: SSRN
The Thucydides Trap and the Future of Global Governance, 113 ASIL Proceedings 100 (2019)
Links: SSRN
The Crisis of World Order and the Constitutive Regime of the International System, 46 Fla. St. U. L. Rev. 569 (2019)
Links: SSRN
Freedom From; Freedom For — A Personal Reflection on the Life and Legacy of M. Cherif Bassiouni , 68 DePaul L. Rev. 733 (2019)
Links: SSRN
Two Seas Apart: An Account of the Establishment, Operation and Impact of the Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry (BICI), 30 Eur. J. Int'l L. 903 (2019)
A Conversation About Climate Change Law and the ‘International Community’, 8 Climate L. 229 (2018)
Links: SSRN
The Myth of U.N. Collective Security, 32 Emory Int'l L. Rev. 1063 (2018)
Links: SSRN
The Unknown Unknowns of Humanitarian War, 111 Am. J. Int'l L. Unbound 297 (2017)
Links: SSRN
The ECOWAS Intervention in the Gambia – 2016, in The Use of Force in International Law: A Case-Based Approach 2017).
Links: SSRN